a gdzie Packer?

[kuba.peerelski]

jest to smutne, ale 3 (albo nawet i 4) pokolenia australijskiej
rodziny Packer pracowaly przez setki lat w pocie czola i rezultat
tego jest taki ze dali sie na przestrzeni ostatnich kilkunastu lat
wyprzedzic przez 14-tu golodupcow z ZSRR.. dzis Packers nie
mieszcza sie juz nawet w pierwszej 100-tce
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_billionaires_%282007%29

[kan_z_oz]

kuba.peerelski napisał:

> jest to smutne, ale 3 (albo nawet i 4) pokolenia australijskiej
> rodziny Packer pracowaly przez setki lat w pocie czola i rezultat
> tego jest taki ze dali sie na przestrzeni ostatnich kilkunastu lat
> wyprzedzic przez 14-tu golodupcow z ZSRR.. dzis Packers nie
> mieszcza sie juz nawet w pierwszej 100-tce
> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_billionaires_%282007%29

ODP: Misiu, nie znasz przysłowia? W trzecim pokoleniu wszystko
zostanie przewalone.
Polecam Ci niezwykle interesującą książkę na temat Packerów; "Rise
and rise of Packers".

Pozdrawiam
Kan

Pozdrawiam
Kan

[kagan-owski]

Packer senior - dalbym mu za sam wyglad 10 lat bez zastanowienia. A
jak poczytalem, skad on wzial fortune, to od razu wyrok podwyzszylem
na dozywocie... Oi nie nie ukradli tylko pierwszego miliona. CALA
ich fortuna pochodzi z kradziezy. Kradli zreszta w najlepszym
towarzystwie, lacznie z premierem rzadu federalnego...

[kagan-owski]

www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jan2006/pack-j05.shtml
WSWS : News & Analysis : Australia & South Pacific

Kerry Packer (1937-2005)
Why the endless eulogies for Australia’s richest man?
By Rick Kelly
5 January 2006
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the
author

The Australian ruling elite has spent much of the holiday season
eulogising the late Kerry Packer, who died December 26. Packer was
Australia’s wealthiest individual, with a personal fortune estimated
at $7 billion (US$5.1 billion) at the time of his death. His
Publishing & Broadcasting Limited company has a range of interests
spread across television, magazines, and casinos and gambling.

Prime Minister John Howard called a special news conference on
December 27 to declare his sadness for the demise of a man he
described as a “friend”. Packer’s death, Howard insisted,
represented “a very big loss for Australia because he was a
passionate believer in this country”. The government has announced
that it is holding a state memorial service for the billionaire, to
be held next month. Labor leader Kim Beazley said that he would miss
his conversations with Packer, whose views “were underpinned with a
profound patriotism and a nationalist approach”.

The media joined the effusive praise for Packer. The Sydney Morning
Herald’s December 28 edition, headlined “Death of a Giant”, devoted
no less than seven full pages to various aspects of his life and
death. In the days since, coverage of his funeral, his son and heir
Jamie, and various other aspects of Packer’s life has been no less
exhaustive.

What accounts for this extraordinary spectacle?

Packer himself was a particularly philistine and boorish individual.
He was poorly educated, and despised books and the arts. (“The
ultimate purgatory would be to go to the Opera House and hear Joan
Sutherland sing,” he once said.) He had a vicious and cruel sense of
humour, enjoyed bullying his employees and federal politicians
alike, and esteemed nothing beyond his own wealth and power. As
Packer’s unofficial biographer Paul Barry commented, “Despite his
vast wealth, he was a man with no obvious sense of civic duty. His
god was money and he worshipped devoutly.”

That such an individual has been so fulsomely praised casts a sharp
light upon the nature of social relations in contemporary Australia.
Contrary to the long-standing myths about Australia being
an “egalitarian” society, for the ruling elite there is but one
relevant measure for assessing the value of an individual’s life—
namely, just how much money that person has amassed. Everything else
is secondary.

The fact that Kerry Packer’s business empire was ultimately based on
two factors—politically-influenced state regulation and systematic
tax avoidance—has deterred none of his admirers. On the contrary,
one senses that much of the establishment’s high praise is driven by
envy for the billionaire’s ability to amass a fortune through
largely parasitic and non-productive enterprises.

The Australian ruling class, after all, has little to parade beyond
its money and possessions. The nation-state was founded as an
outpost of the British Empire, with the wealth of the elite largely
derived from the pastoral and mining exploitation of a land
violently seized from the indigenous population. The ruling class
can point to no noble historical episodes of political sacrifice and
revolutionary struggle, and has always been characterised by
parasitism and backwardness.

Packer can only be understood as both a product and representative
of the Australian ruling class as a whole. Its commemorations have
thus taken the form of an open celebration of itself.


The rise of the Packer empire

The origins of Packer’s enormous wealth can be traced back to Kerry
Packer’s grandfather, Robert Clyde (R.C.) Packer. The son of a
colonial customs official in Tasmania, R.C. Packer moved to Sydney
in 1900, one year before the federated Australian nation-state was
founded. After first working as a journalist, R.C. helped found the
popular Smith’s Weekly newspaper in 1919, which was followed by the
Daily Guardian in 1923.

While both newspapers featured populist editorials and muckraking
investigations of political corruption, Packer always had stridently
right-wing sympathies. His newspapers distinguished themselves
during the Depression by accusing New South Wales Labor Premier Jack
Lang of being a communist, and by publishing favourable reports of
public meetings held by the New Guard fascist movement. According to
a military intelligence report from the period, R.C. Packer was
himself a New Guard member.

In 1932, R.C.’s son Frank launched his own publishing career when he
went into business with “Red Ted” Theodore, former trade union
militant and Labor federal treasurer. Theodore and Packer took over
the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) newspaper, the World, after
promising to increase its circulation, restore profitability, and
maintain the paper’s staff. The two men then cut a secret deal with
the publishers of the major Sydney daily the Sun to shut down the
World. According to the terms of the arrangement—negotiated for the
Sun by none other than R.C. Packer —Frank Packer and Ted Theodore
received 86,500 pounds to liquidate the World. The AWU received just
100 pounds of this money, which did not cover even a fraction of the
redundancy payouts the union had to pay the World’s sacked employees.

Packer maintained his lease over the AWU’s printing presses, which
he then used to launch the Australian Women’s Weekly. The magazine
featured advice on fashion, cooking, and child care and was a great
success, providing the springboard for Packer to expand his
interests across the newspaper and magazine industry. His publishing
interests gave him enormous political influence, particularly in New
South Wales through the leading Sydney daily newspaper, the Daily
Telegraph, which he owned from 1936 to 1972.

The publisher was notorious for using his media interests to air his
reactionary views. In one infamous Telegraph editorial, Frank Packer
ruminated on the 1967 urban violence in the US. “If every time Negro
revolutionaries decided to burn and kill, those maintaining the law
killed 500 Negroes, the Negroes might decide to stop burning and
killing,” he wrote.

Kerry Packer, born in 1937, received a brutal upbringing from his
tyrannical father. He was packed off to a boarding school, which
happened to be a few hundred metres down the road from the family
home, when he was just five years old. His academic performance was
always poor; his father called him “Boofhead”, while his mother
often referred to him as “Dummy”. After leaving school, Packer went
to work for his father, and for a period was forced to work as a
cleaner on the Daily Telegraph’s printing presses.

It was only in 1972, when Kerry’s elder brother Clyde broke
relations with his father and quit the Packer dynasty, that Frank
Packer recognised Kerry as his heir. Two years later the millionaire
patriarch died, bequeathing Kerry a $100 million company,
Consolidated Press Holdings, which owned Channel 9 in Sydney and
Melbourne, and a range of popular magazines.


Kerry Packer takes the helm

While Frank Packer had always focussed on developing his publishing
interests, Kerry recognised the growing importance of television.
The son imported a series of prog

[kagan-owski]

Kerry Packer takes the helm

While Frank Packer had always focussed on developing his publishing
interests, Kerry recognised the growing importance of television.
The son imported a series of programs from the US to boost Channel
9’s ratings, and placed particular emphasis on developing the
network’s coverage of popular sporting events.

In 1977, the Australian Cricket Board refused to accede to Kerry
Packer’s demand that his network be granted exclusive broadcast
rights. (“There’s a little bit of the whore in all of us,” Packer
claimed to have told the Board. “Gentlemen, name your price.” He
then signed up 50 international cricketers and formed his own
competition, rivalling the established world game. Packer’s
initiative, however, faced massive losses as his cricketers were
denied access to the major stadiums, and poor crowds resulted in
inadequate advertising revenue.

But Packer’s fortunes were soon to turn. The state Labor government
led by Neville Wran stepped in to pass legislation that allowed it
to sack the 13 members of the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) Trust who
had banned Packer from using the venue. The government later
announced that floodlights would be installed at the ground; two-
thirds of the $1.3 million expense would be borne by SCG members,
one-third by NSW taxpayers. Packer incurred none of the costs, but
reaped the enduring rewards, as the enhanced ground helped launch
his highly successful day-night cricket matches.

Much of the media coverage following Packer’s death has celebrated
his involvement in world cricket. Various commentators have praised
the billionaire for boosting the players’ pay, enhancing television
coverage, and promoting the sport around the world. The Australian
cricket team even donned black armbands in Packer’s honour at the
traditional Boxing Day test match. All of this coverage overlooked
the fact that Packer’s intervention into cricket was driven by one
sole concern—making a profit.

The Wran government’s role in saving World Series Cricket marked a
turning point for the Packer empire. Frank Packer had always been a
staunch supporter of the Liberal Party, and ran frequent editorials
condemning alleged communist influence in the trade union movement
and the Labor Party. In 1972, Channel 9’s influential “A Current
Affair” television program described Labor leader Gough Whitlam’s
agenda as “the marijuana dreams of a Utopian Disneyland”.

By the time Kerry Packer took over, however, the Labor Party had
abandoned the old social reformist program that had so incensed his
father. After the governor-general sacked the Whitlam government in
1975, senior Labor figures concluded that they could no longer
afford to antagonise big business and its media mouthpieces by
campaigning on a platform of government spending on social
infrastructure and concessions to the working class. In its place a
pro-business and “free market” program was advanced. This lurch to
the right was bound up with profound economic shifts—principally
Australia’s deepening integration into the international capitalist
market and the end of the post-war boom.

The end result was that Kerry Packer came to recognise that he could
do business with the Laborites. He backed Labor in the 1978 New
South Wales state election, with all his suburban newspapers
editorialising on behalf of the party. Wran’s 30-minute election
speech was broadcast by Channel 9 in primetime, while the Liberals’
speech was not shown in full at all.

Following the Wran government’s re-election, a consortium headed by
Packer and his fellow media magnate Rupert Murdoch won the contract
to run the new state lottery. The highly lucrative deal was awarded
in highly dubious circumstances, amid rumours of corruption and
bribery, and came to symbolise the state Labor government’s cosy
relationship with Packer.

The entrepreneur also cultivated his connections with federal Labor
figures. Most of these contacts were initially developed through
John Ducker, who was NSW Labor Party president and secretary of the
NSW Labor Council, as well as being a member of the Channel 9 Board.
Ducker recommended Packer to his colleagues as a man “prepared to do
business”.

In the years leading up to the election of the federal Labor
government led by Bob Hawke in 1983, Packer became close with Hawke
and other senior figures, including soon-to-be treasurer and prime
minister Paul Keating and Labor powerbroker Graham Richardson.
Within the Hawke and Keating governments, Richardson became known as
the “minister for Channel 9” due to his strident advocacy on behalf
of Packer.


“The Goanna”

These Labor contacts proved invaluable in 1984, when the media
magnate was accused of an extraordinary series of crimes, including
involvement in drug trafficking, pornography, fraud, money
laundering, and tax evasion. The allegations emerged during the
Costigan Royal Commission into corruption in the Painters and
Dockers Union, and were published in the National Times, which
codenamed Packer “The Goanna”.

While Packer strenuously denied all the charges, he was unable to
explain why enormous sums of his cash had circulated through a
number of criminal figures. “Packer was anxious to deny that moneys
were used for drugs, as were the others,” Costigan wrote. “Their
problem was the reluctance to disclose the real purpose of the cash
payments, for fear that on exposure they would be prosecuted: thus
the half-truth, not the whole... Those who purvey half-truths have
only themselves to blame for the consequences.”

According to Paul Barry, all of the charges, with the exception of
tax evasion, were false. Whatever the truth of the matter, it is
testament to Packer’s general character that the allegations were so
widely believed—including by many who worked immediately under him.

The Hawke government ensured that the Royal Commission was not given
time to fully investigate all the accusations. In March 1987 Lionel
Bowen, the attorney-general, under strong pressure from the prime
minister, issued a highly unusual statement to parliament which
cleared Packer of all charges.

The same year, the billionaire told ABC Radio that Hawke had done
great things for business and that he would be voting Labor at the
next election. In return, the prime minister heaped fulsome praise
on Packer at a 1987 Businessman of the Year ceremony, describing him
as “a close personal friend” and a “very great Australian”. Packer
was later heard telling a friend that he wished Hawke would not be
quite so deferential in public.

The Costigan investigation shed light on some of Packer’s methods
for avoiding paying tax, which saw him under investigation by the
Australian Tax Office for most of the 1980s. As the entrepreneur
forthrightly declared to the Australian parliament in 1991, he felt
no obligation to pay any tax at all if he could help it. During the
1980s, Packer employed what were known as “bottom of the harbour”
tax schemes, which featured complex arrangements involving the
concealment of companies within subcompanies within foreign
subsidiaries—all to hide company profits from the taxman. Millions
of dollars in untraceable cash was moved around between different
companies and individuals—including a number of convicted fraudsters
and con-men.

Despite numerous investigations, Packer was never prosecuted for tax
evasion. His tax lawyers defended the legality of their client’s
manoeuvres,

[kagan-owski]

“The Goanna”

These Labor contacts proved invaluable in 1984, when the media
magnate was accused of an extraordinary series of crimes, including
involvement in drug trafficking, pornography, fraud, money
laundering, and tax evasion. The allegations emerged during the
Costigan Royal Commission into corruption in the Painters and
Dockers Union, and were published in the National Times, which
codenamed Packer “The Goanna”.

While Packer strenuously denied all the charges, he was unable to
explain why enormous sums of his cash had circulated through a
number of criminal figures. “Packer was anxious to deny that moneys
were used for drugs, as were the others,” Costigan wrote. “Their
problem was the reluctance to disclose the real purpose of the cash
payments, for fear that on exposure they would be prosecuted: thus
the half-truth, not the whole... Those who purvey half-truths have
only themselves to blame for the consequences.”

According to Paul Barry, all of the charges, with the exception of
tax evasion, were false. Whatever the truth of the matter, it is
testament to Packer’s general character that the allegations were so
widely believed—including by many who worked immediately under him.

The Hawke government ensured that the Royal Commission was not given
time to fully investigate all the accusations. In March 1987 Lionel
Bowen, the attorney-general, under strong pressure from the prime
minister, issued a highly unusual statement to parliament which
cleared Packer of all charges.

The same year, the billionaire told ABC Radio that Hawke had done
great things for business and that he would be voting Labor at the
next election. In return, the prime minister heaped fulsome praise
on Packer at a 1987 Businessman of the Year ceremony, describing him
as “a close personal friend” and a “very great Australian”. Packer
was later heard telling a friend that he wished Hawke would not be
quite so deferential in public.

The Costigan investigation shed light on some of Packer’s methods
for avoiding paying tax, which saw him under investigation by the
Australian Tax Office for most of the 1980s. As the entrepreneur
forthrightly declared to the Australian parliament in 1991, he felt
no obligation to pay any tax at all if he could help it. During the
1980s, Packer employed what were known as “bottom of the harbour”
tax schemes, which featured complex arrangements involving the
concealment of companies within subcompanies within foreign
subsidiaries—all to hide company profits from the taxman. Millions
of dollars in untraceable cash was moved around between different
companies and individuals—including a number of convicted fraudsters
and con-men.

Despite numerous investigations, Packer was never prosecuted for tax
evasion. His tax lawyers defended the legality of their client’s
manoeuvres, and always found new ways of fully exploiting the
system. Financial deregulation introduced by Labor in the 1980s
permitted Packer’s Consolidated Press company to slash its effective
tax rate from 39 percent in 1984 to just 14 percent in 1986. A 1987
tax system reform also introduced by the Hawke government allowed
Packer to reduce his personal income tax to 9 percent. Today, much
of PBL is run through a holding company in the Bahamas, an
established tax haven, and the business is understood to pay less
than 10 percent in tax.

In recent days, Packer’s admirers in the media and in Canberra have
rhapsodised over his supposed generosity and philanthropy. Almost
every day a new story of the “big man’s” selflessness has been
promoted—from his one-off sponsorship of a group of disabled
children’s trip to Disneyland, to the annual donation of his old
shoes to the Salvation Army. If only Packer had paid the same rate
of tax as do ordinary working Australians, however, many, many more
hundreds of millions would have been available to the socially and
economically disadvantaged in the form of public funds for health,
education, and other social services.


Packer and the politicians

Packer’s media interests in Australia have always been dependent on
media concentration and ownership laws, which regulate everything
from the number of television networks permitted, the level of
foreign ownership of media outlets, and the possible ownership of
both newspapers and television stations. The Hawke government—like
the Keating and Howard governments following it—formulated these
regulations, not on the basis of the real interests of the
Australian people, but first and foremost with the interests of
Packer and his ilk in mind.

In 1986, the Labor government issued a series of new cross media
ownership laws that became known as “Packer’s package”. Part of the
new legislation permitted Packer’s Sydney and Melbourne Channel 9
stations to become one national network, which vastly increased its
value. In a particularly famous deal, Alan Bond purchased the
national Channel 9 network for $1.025 billion. Packer then bought
the network back from a bankrupted Bond three years later for about
$200 million.

Packer was notorious for his cruel and malicious treatment of those
who worked under him. He was fond of abusing people in front of
their colleagues, before telling them, “You’re f——— stupid. Now tell
me you’re stupid and why you’re stupid.” In private, Packer treated
politicians likewise. He was accustomed to summonsing politicians at
will whenever he wished to issue a new demand. “If Packer rang Hawke
and said he wanted to see me,” one minister said, “then I’d be on
the plane to see him.” There are many accounts of a displeased
Packer towering over government ministers and unleashing obscenity-
filled tirades.

Packer’s famous appearance before a parliamentary media enquiry in
1991 provided a rare insight into the real relationship between
Australia’s ultra-wealthy and the elected members of parliament. The
billionaire contemptuously lambasted the parliamentarians who had
dared to challenge his interest in taking over Fairfax, publisher of
the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age. Packer denounced the inquiry
as an “intellectual wank”, “crap”, and “claptrap”. Politicians from
all the established parties cowered before him. Their abject
subservience was best summed up when Packer angrily dismissed a
question asked by Labor “left” Jeannette McHugh. “I’m sorry, Mr.
Packer,” McHugh quickly replied.

The entire affair left no one in any doubt as to who was really in
charge. In a particularly crude and unapologetic manner, Packer’s
performance provided a graphic demonstration of the reality of
Australia’s “democracy”. The parliamentary set-up relies on the
popular illusion that ordinary citizens periodically elect
politicians who represent them and rule in their interests. But for
all the elaborate trappings of elections and parliamentary
tradition, the reality is that wealth equals power, and parliament
and its members are, in the final analysis, nothing more than
servants of capital.

Reference: Paul Barry, The Rise and Rise of Kerry Packer (Sydney,
Bantam, 1993)

[kuba.peerelski]

na szczescie bozia dala malo talentow Jamesowi, spadkobiercy
Kerry'ego, a w dodatku obdarzyla go cala gama problemow psychicznych
wynikajacych z niemocy w relacjach z kobietami, co powinno
skutecznie sprowadzic ten zrobiony na oszustwach biznes spowrotem do
parteru

[kagan-owski]

Innymi slowy, sprawiedliwosci stanie sie zadosc! Zadka to rzecz na
kontynencie slynacym z kangurzych sadow (kangaroo courts)...